Treasure Valley Part 12

As Gilbert helped her into his buggy he looked at her wonderingly. Was she really content with her homely tasks, or could it be possible that she was making this sacrifice voluntarily?

"Can you be quite content to settle down here in Elmbrook, when you might be making fame for yourself in a big city?" he asked. "I don't believe you realize that you might some day move throngs with your voice."

She smiled, with a tinge of sadness. "Well, you see, I am quite sure of my work here," she said half playfully, "and one could never be certain of a steady supply of 'moved throngs.'"

"You could," he cried earnestly. "You are wasting your talents."

She shook her head. "It is better to waste one's talents than something better."

"What, for instance?"

"One's life."

"How could it be better employed, in your case, than by giving the world your voice? You need to be more ambitious," he added bluntly.

She turned upon him that steady, scrutinizing glance that, from the first, had made him conscious of inner unworthiness. Her eyes were bright, and had lost the tired look; the cool breeze had brought back the rose-leaf tints to her face, and had blown one bronze curl across her forehead.

"You ought to hear Uncle Hughie on that subject," she said, with apparent irrelevance. "He is always 'rastlin'' out some problem for other people. One cannot live with him and be in doubt of one's duty."

"And he has taught you that it is your duty to remain at home?"

"Perhaps," she said, looking away into the ma.s.s of greenery by the roadside. It was evident that she did not care to pursue the subject.

"Duty is generally the thing a fellow doesn't want to do," he remarked, by way of making the conversation less personal.

"It's Uncle Hughie's pet hobby. He lost the chance of a college education, and many other privileges, through adhering to it, and says he has never regretted his action for a moment."

Gilbert was silent. The unbelievable thing must be true, then. This girl was sacrificing her own chance of advancement for the sake of her brother and sister. He looked at her with a feeling of reverence. To give up so much was commendable, but to give it up quietly, without a murmur, without even the chance of commendation--that was splendid.

"'You are in line with the universe,'" he quoted.

She glanced at him as if in alarm, and quickly changed the subject.

Gilbert understood; he was tacitly informed that her sacrifice was to remain a secret.

He stifled a sigh. He could not help remembering, just then, that he had acted quite a different part when duty had called to one path, and ambition and pleasure to another. He had merely postponed the duty, of course; that was not really shirking it, for he intended to perform it to the last jot. Nevertheless, he wished that it had been done years ago; and then he recalled the words of the dark watchman, and felt himself grow hot again.

They turned another curve, and came out of the cool, green silence into the hard, white, sunlit road that ran straight up to Elmbrook.

"I wonder if the telescope's on us!" cried the doctor, with a boyish desire to get away from his uncomfortable reflections. He checked himself, abashed, and glanced at his companion. Her stately gravity made him half afraid of her. He thought of Rosalie's irresistible gaiety, and longed for her radiant companionship. To his surprise, Miss Cameron's eyes twinkled. Apparently, she had a sense of humor, after all.

"That shows how thoroughly un-Elmbrooked you still remain. It's been resting in the northeast window ever since you drove away, and Granny Long has been wheeled in there to watch for your return." Gilbert felt vastly more at his ease.

"You make me feel as if I were a new constellation."

"Or a rising star--I hope you are."

"Thank you. When you get to be the second Albani----"

"And you the greatest consulting physician in Canada----"

"Of course I shall remember that you encouraged me."

"It isn't really a joke, you know," she said with sweet seriousness.

"I don't think--I know you don't realize how important you are in the eyes of the people about you. It is an"--her eyes were very grave--"an exacting position, Dr. Allen."

They had reached her gate, and Gilbert was a.s.sisting her to alight. He understood. She was paying him a delicate compliment, and with it was the hint that he must line up to the Elmbrook ideal.

"I feel overcome with humiliation at the thought," he said, standing before her, hat in hand, "when I consider my shortcomings."

She shook her head. "You ought to be glad. One can scarcely help attaining to an ideal that is set before one so persistently every day."

Gilbert drove away humbled. This girl, with her splendid talent, had quietly laid aside her chance of a great career because the road to fame deviated from the path of duty. And she had done it without a word or hint of martyrdom. And he--what had he done? How much thought had he spent in the past ten years on the man who had given him his chance in life? Suppose he had been to him all that he should have been? Then he would have lost Rosalie and the two years abroad that had brought him nearer her social level. Gilbert saw that there had never been a moment when he had met the issue squarely. He had merely put it aside, saying "Next year, next year." Well, what did it matter, anyway? Martin was not in want. If he had needed the money it would have been quite different; and when the time came he was going to do something splendid for him. And he was doing so well now that the time was not far off. But Gilbert was honest with himself. He knew well that when the two years' work which he had laid out for himself in this little backward place were ended it was not the neglected duty he would consider, but a city practice, and a fine home worthy of Rosalie. For the first time in his life the prospect brought him no pleasure.

CHAPTER VII

THE TRAINING OF THE ORPHANS

Off on de fiel' you foller de plough, Den w'en you're tire' you scare de cow, Sickin' de dog till dey jomp de wall, So de milk ain't good for not'ing at all-- An you're only five an' a half dis fall, Little Bateese!

--WILLIAM HENRY DRUMMOND.

In Elmbrook, parental discipline was simple and direct, and consisted of but one method of procedure: when the rising generation departed from the ways of its mothers it was promptly spanked back into the path of rect.i.tude, and no more about it.

But when the Sawyers found themselves possessed of a large and lively family, all methods of discipline, whether sanctioned by long custom or invented on the spur of the moment, through the extreme urgency of the case, alike failed.

The orphans presented an entirely unique problem in the rearing of children. In the first place, the community was completely taken aback by their unexpected character. Not one of them at all conformed to the picture of a forsaken child, as conceived by the village. The Elmbrook ideal was the sort that languished on the front page of the Sunday-school library books. It was quiet and pensive and hungry, and gave all its meager earnings to a small invalid brother or drunken father. But the Sawyer orphans were neither pensive nor appealing.

There was a defiant belligerency about them that stifled the avenues of pity and put one on the defensive. They were wild and gay, and uproarious, too, and with the exception of Tim, the eldest, they were strong and robust. He certainly looked as though he had been starved, body and soul; but his other unorphan-like qualities were so obtrusive that he was looked upon as the biggest counterfeit of the crowd.

During school hours the three eldest were kept in some sort of conformity to law and order by the strong hand of the Duke of Wellington; but at home and abroad they were a law unto themselves, and kept the whole community in a state of apprehension, like people living near the crater of an active volcano.

Their life had been largely spent in the slum district of a crowded city, and the change to the freedom of the Oro fields and woods was almost too much for the orphans. After school hours they all, with one consent, went mad, and ranged far and wide over hill and dale, until Granny Long's old hands grew weary readjusting the telescope. Then when she did catch sight of them it was only to be grossly insulted; for whenever the small scalawags guessed they were within range of the spygla.s.s they would stand in line, and go through frightful contortions of the face and body, expressive of contempt for the instrument and everything behind it.

Wherever the orphans went, depredations of all sorts followed. They chased the neighbors' cows from the fields out to the road, and the pigs from the road into the fields. They climbed trees and stole birds' nests. They dammed the creek and flooded Cameron's pasture.

They teased Sandy McQuarry's old ram until it was mad with rage, and b.u.t.ted the ex-elder all over the barnyard. They smashed windows, and broke down fences, and, in fact, were a caution, and no mistake.

But in spite of all, their foster-parents lived in happy unconsciousness of their imperfections. For they were so wonderfully clever that Jake and Hannah were lost in admiration.

Certainly they worked a reform in the slow-moving Sawyer household.

They started with the garden, and even Mrs. Winters had to admit they made an improvement there. Jake and Hannah had long felt the humiliation of their scratched and scarred front yard, in such ugly contrast to its trim surroundings, but they had never been able to better matters. Hannah had received a present, some years before, of twelve new fowls, which, as was their pious custom, she and Jake presented with Bible names, calling them for the twelve sons of Israel.

And now each, like its namesake, had many descendants that had multiplied upon the face of the garden, and turned that promising land into a desert. Every year Jake faithfully dug flower-beds, and Hannah as faithfully planted seeds; but, just as regularly, they were scratched up by the Twelve Tribes.

But when the orphans arrived the marauders were taught their true place. Though it was late in the season, the twins planted a half bushel of flower seeds, and dug and raked enough for a plantation.

Then, the first time the Twelve Tribes emigrated from the back yard they were promptly shooed across the street and over into the doctor's garden. Davy Munn, indignant at this unsolicited presentation, as promptly shooed them back again, and war was declared. Tim had hitherto looked upon the gardening enterprise with contempt, but now he entered heartily into it, and the battle raged tumultuously. Each side was bombarded with sticks and stones and clods of dirt and hysterical hens, until Granny Long sent word to the doctor that if he didn't want to be buried alive he'd better do something to the orphans, and that right speedily. So the young man marched into the field, routed both sides, and chased the Twelve Tribes back to their own country. For a long time the eldest orphan felt the terrifying strength of the arm that had lifted him from the ground and shaken him till his teeth chattered. Thereafter he had such a profound admiration for the doctor that his viceroy, Davy Munn, was allowed to rule his own yard in peace.

But the hens had still to be conquered, so the orphans set to work and built around the back yard a lofty fence of wire and laths, borrowed from the sawmill when Sandy McQuarry was away. Inside this the Twelve Tribes were shut up in Egyptian bondage until the garden was in bloom.

Even Isaac and Rebekah were permitted to promenade in the barnyard only, among the dogs, cats and rabbits with which that interesting place swarmed.